Des Moines, Iowa (RI) — The Iowa Senate has sent the governor a bill to set new guidelines for election recounts.
Republican Senator Ken Rozenboom of Pella is chairman of the Senate committee that reviews election-related bills.
Rozenboom says one of those flaws is that there are no CURRENT limits on which candidates can ask for a recount.
The bill says candidates in statewide or federal races may only request a recount if the margin between the two leading candidates is 15-hundredths of a percent (0.15%). For all other races, the difference between the candidates would have to be less than one percent or 50 votes — whichever is less. The bill would only allow recounting ballots by hand in extraordinary circumstances — so all or nearly all ballots would be recounted by the same tabulation machines used on Election Day. That change has been sought by Secretary of State Paul Pate after there was no uniformity in how counties conducted recounts in a 2020 congressional race — the one Mariannette Miller-Meeks won by six votes.
Another change in the bill puts county auditors and their staff in charge of recounts. Under current law, the two candidates in a recount each choose a person to serve on a recount board and then agree on who a third board member should be. Pate says those three-member recount boards wind up being observers anyway.
Democrats who voted against the bill say they’re concerned about county auditors who might be in charge of recounting the ballots in their own election. Senator Sarah Trone Garriott of Waukee has faced two recounts in her three successful races for a senate seat.
Secretary of State Pate says Iowa is the only state that does not have election officials in charge of recounts. Under the bill, each campaign would be able to have up to five observers in each county where a recount is being conducted.
